Comments

blf
When one cuts one’s hair (by chainsaw or otherwise) once every four years, that’s pretty darned exciting. :) I just lost about 40 centimeters, the height of a typical little penguin. But at least now I know the MDP isn’t hiding out under there any longer.

Sorry, what is this “hair cutting” of which you speak? Is that anything like “shaving” or “liking peas”, two other absurd myths?

I last had a haircut in c.2000, and that one was the first since sometime in the 1980s and done (mostly) for charity, raising something over 1000 € (I forget the exact amount now) for Amnesty International.

I have to make my first post sometime, so it may as well be at this point in the conversation as I really hate having my hair cut. It is partly my own fault as I am spectacularly bad at hairdresser small talk, but it is one of the few situations that makes me really uncomfortable.

mclarenm23
Hello! Welcome in! If you have any question about where to find the grog, just ask around. :) I’m sure there are cookies and chocolate available, too, somewhere… around… *khm* Yes.
Also, I’m also really bad at the small talk, but out of the 3 times I’ve ever been (my sister always used to cut my hair), I haven’t noticed that they particularly mind silence [/limited personal experience]. Like taxi-drivers – even if they love to talk, they have to respect your wish for silence.

blf

I last had a haircut in c.2000, and that one was the first since sometime in the 1980s

Either you have (a) really long hair or (b) really slow-growing hair or (c) it takes your hair that long to break through the varnish you put on after the previous cut (combination British industrial cheddar with dried pea powder smoothed over your scalp?), but that’s pretty impressive.

rq
Well, I was fat in highschool, too.
I’m not trying to get back to the body I had when I was living in Ireland (no life, no car), but I need to stop gaining. Thank you for asking about the foot. It’s getting better, I no longer limp, but it still hurts after a while.
I decided to go swimming once a week, since my family friendly college has all the classes in the afternoon anyway.

rq, At the time. my hair hung down to below my waist. Now, some 15-ish years later, and despite not having being scalped since, it’s only almost to the bottom of my shoulder blades. I fink it’s growing more slowly as I do this “maturing” crock.

So I went out for lunch yesterday and got a kuku sandwich. Alas, the restaurant had changed the recipe since I’d last had it so the kuku was packed full of cilantro when it had previously had none. I do not do cilantro. Luckily the server was really understanding and let me order something else while comping me the kuku sandwich. And on the bill, under the reason for voiding the cost of the sandwich, he had input “CILANTNO.”

I am a bit concerned about her comments on Richard Dawkins sexism and misogyny over a number of years. I am concerned, because like a lot of people Dawkins was my starting point for thinking about being more actively atheist and challenging religious beliefs. For as long as I can remember religion was something ridiculous, but I felt that was a thought and frustration I would have to keep to myself. Until of course I saw people like Dawkins challenge and even ridicule religious beliefs.

Anyway, sorry for getting sidetracked but my concern is that I look up to a man (Dawkins) that has been consistently sexist and that I have failed to notice this. I know about his comments regarding Rebecca Watson’s video and was willing to put it down to a one off where he failed to understand the issue. So I was wondering if people can provide further details of Dawkins sexist attitudes and behavior so I can approach forming my opinion of him from a more informed position?

mclarenm23
There’s a lot of material out there if you look for yourself, but I know Ophelia Benson (Butterflies & Wheels) occasionally documents his… uh… incidents of foot-in-mouth (fingers-in-…?). She’s not the only one on FtB, but unfortunately, outside of this network, I wouldn’t know where to point you (specifically). Though I’m sure googling some combination of Dawkins, sexism, feminism would yield good results.
On a personal note, I saw him speak live once, and while putting down women’s studies with the idea that there is no merit in looking at history through women’s eyes and that ‘women’s studies’ as a concept is far too broad, he advanced a similary-broad potential program about evolutionary theory and its applicability, because it would be far more valuable. So, maybe nothing blatant, but the way he spoke of women’s studies and feminism was pretty deprecating.

I’m surprised you have failed to notice this, I’m pretty sure PZ has brought it up from time to time as well.

(That particular presentation, by the way, has given rise to the phrases “Dawkins Low” and “Dawkins Depression” between my cousin and I (basically the same thing, a difference of magnitude) – we’d listened to Richard Fortey and Richard Wiseman speak, and were very excited and happy, and then Dawkins happened… Ruined the subsequent evening, which we fixed with Lebanese food and beers.)

At first i thought “the fuck? that can’t possibly be right…”….then i read it’s a residence for offspring of “Guardia Civil” officers….and suddenly it became entirely plausible that such a sad, pathetic, ridiculous thing could be happening at all.

mclarenm23
Well, it’s not as if PZ goes on and on about it, and apparently most of his major fumbles occur on Twitter and other media (B&W would be a good place to try, with links to other of his mis-speaks). Like I say, a general search would probably yield better results than I can provide. :)
Also, his sexism and anti-feminism don’t generally appear in his scientific writings, which is good – it’s in the social bits where he fails. (But again, I could be wrong – I haven’t read all his books.)

azhael and blf
I sort of wonder how far in the past they’re living, if there’s an outright written ban on men/boys doing their own fucking laundry. The fuck…

blf,
“the body I had when I was living in Ireland”
-If you have read “Wormwood” you know that demons can use second-hand bodies as meat suits. That is how Wormwood started the uproar about that carpenter in Judea 30 AD. (he has learned to be more circumspect since)

I feel bad about not having an account to contribute through :-(
You have my best wishes.
BTW “blaine” -Any relation of the homicidial AI train in The Dark Tower?
I think Blaine was cool, in a Hannibal Lecter kind of way.

No, you just cut it during a waning moon. If you’d’ve cut it at the new moon or at the very least before the full moon, it would be growing super-fast right now.
I may have the moon phases reversed, but it’s true.

Giliell, this weight thing due not being able to exercise sounds familiar. For me it’s first a broken arm in november and erysipelas in the leg since March. Not bicycling to work since November and less physical tasks at work means that I’m in a lousy shape. I must do as you have done and just start doing some stuff I can do.

On the good side I’ve graduated a week ago and I’m an Electronics Engineer now. Also thanks to the wonders of modern antibiotics, I’ve been able to things other than reporting at work (such as wiring the power electronics testing setups in the labs).

In regard to the tonsorial issues, I have no problem with someone touching my hair and here, we’re not really big on smalltalk. However I don’t like to make an appointment get my hair cut and now that I work 8-4, it’s less easy to just walk into a hair salon and ask if they could cut my hair now. On the other hand a few times a year is enough, at least for now. If I get too bald to have long hair, then that’s another thing. I don’t think I’d like to look like this.

A plan by President Barack Obama to close a loophole which allows Americans to buy weapons such as machine guns, grenades and sawn-off shotguns without undergoing background checks is set to be delayed, due to intense opposition from the NRA and other anti-gun-control activists.

Hey, rq, how has the day been going for you? Hope it’s been ok. You were going to spend the 3rd in the Lounge, I think … I’m supposed to be working, but I couldn’t quite keep away from the train wreck that is medic0506 over in his very own thread. I hope your day has been better than mine, anyway!
.
The USAnian cult of the school prom seems to have been creeping in here in Blighty in recent years. My kids’ school has had what used to be a leavers’ party gradually transformed into a leavers’ ball, though most of the kids take it with a pinch of salt (while loving the dressing-up thing). As far as I know, although quite a few go as “couples”, there are also plenty who don’t – so thank dog there isn’t any (or not too much) pressure. I’m not sure what the proportions are, but as long as there are enough kids there who aren’t in “couples” …
Anyway, a lot of the kids at this school already own at least one smart outfit. SonSpawn of course does not! He’s never worn a suit before in his life. So we went trawling round the second-hand shops today, finding absolutely nothing, and just as we were running out of time and about to head back we saw a new charity shop that wasn’t there last time … and they had a black suit in his size. Phew. Just needs the hems taken up a bit.
Why do we have to have this bloody prom bollocks? Why can’t they just have a party ?!?!

opposablethumbs
I mostly did nothing much all day, but then my youngest brother and his gf went to see Othello (modern ballet) with me, just got in, ready to have some tea and hang out a bit. :) Yesterday I came home feeling like I was getting ready to start dying, but I’m 95% sure it’s because the weather has been colder than expected, and I was out basically two days in mostly inappropriate dress (though in the end I layered everything!!). A couple of hours with a crappy movie, a couple of blankets and hot herbal tea fixed me right up, though, along with no rushing this morning. :) The funny thing? I’m in no hurry to get back into the daily grind. I do miss the kids, a little bit… and Husband, a little bit… but… I’m enjoying myself more, if that makes any sense.
(And honestly, I’m a little bit peeved Husband decided so late to take the kids along with him to the country to foist them onto unsuspecting relatives – I’d have tried for another flight to London, this time with less rush and more opposablethumbs (schedules permitting, of course). Minor detail, which shouldn’t cast doubt on the fact that I’m thoroughly enjoying this rather unexpected free time.)

And a prom is a party… A party in fancy dress! :P Glad you found the suit, though – it always makes me supremely happy to find that perfect thing at the last moment. Doesn’t always happen, though… Yay you and SonSpawn!

GiliellMy heart stopped. I hope yours is fine! (And the phone, too.)

blf

Which moon? There’s two visible

Uh… I see three. Bad sign? Also, no peas have ever awoken here. Which alternate reality are you experiencing?

opposablethumbs
My experience of proms (2 of them) gave me the distinct impression that coupling *could* be done, but tended to be reserved for those who were *already* in relationships, and everyone (including the couples) went as friend-groups more than anything else. Prom was mostly for having a good time with friends.
Yay! for SonSpawn, I bet he’ll look very smart :)

Glad you’re enjoying the free time, rq – it sounds lovely; peace and quiet, what bliss! Just the thought of having the place to myself for a few days sounds like heaven, actually :-). Sorry to be mixed up (I’m famous for getting people mixed up), but … that’s your brother who I met? He’s over to see you for a visit? Othello in modern ballet form sounds brilliant! As for being overoptimistic about the weather, ah well over here I’m not taking any chances – it’s still only barely spring until proven otherwise. Hope you didn’t suffer any lasting ill-effects.
And yes, I know it’s a party really … it’s just a bit more stressful than it needs to be, with the pressure to find fancy clothes that can be hard to afford. Dressing up is fun, but when they start feeling an obligation to wear something formal instead of just something outrageous or inventive or funny or different … thank goodness for second-hand shops and the chance to find something cheap, is all I can say!
It’s going to be held next week; I just hope it’s fun and not too couple-y :-\

When my house burned down four years ago, I lost all of my recipes that I had collected. I really want to make horchata, but it’s been years and I can’t remember the exact proportions from my old recipe. Rrgh. So frustrating. I wish it were somehow possible to automatically taste test every recipe I find online without having to bother making it first and then discovering that, crap, this tastes awful.

The fact that the majority of recipes I’m finding online use cow’s milk isn’t helping. ::shakes fist at computer::

opposablethumbs
That’s how I (vaguely) recall prom as well. I was initially going to go as part of a couple among a group of friends, but wound up going alone as part of a group, as my putative date preferred to go with someone in a tux, while I’d found a fetching green dress to wear.

Hi, Dalillama! I had a 1940s (I think) dark green dress – dark green is one of my all-time favourites for anything glamourous (or rather, attempting to be glamourous, in my case). Great with dark colouring, especially. (it was from another second-hand shop, of course! (more like a junk-shop, but with some cool old things) I’m a veteran of junk-shop and second-hand-shop-shopping I suppose :-) ) There was no prom, we didn’t do them back then, so I just wore it to any old student do. That’s what I liked, when people would turn up in anything from ripped jeans to satin dresses and you didn’t have to be all one or all the other.
Well it’s good to hear, anyway, that proms don’t all tend to be too couple-y. I bet more people have a better chance of having fun that way.

Quick link drop-off:How Censors Killed The Weird, Experimental, Progressive Golden Age Of Comics“In the 1940s, comic books were often feminist, diverse, and bold. Then the reactionary Comics Code Authority changed the trajectory of comic book culture for good.”
(Hat tip to Making Light)
–
And quick idle question—something I’ve wondered about for years, wrt People Who Are Not Me—when you look out through your eyes, are you aware of/able to see your cheekbones?
–

opposablethumbs, yup. It should be entirely dairy free. I’ve found a recipe that looks close to what I used to make and I’m starting it soaking tonight, so hopefully it’ll turn out all right. If it does, I can keep this one and tweak it until I get back to what I had. It is remarkably difficult to go without all those old recipes, though. The world tastes different. :(

What the hell kind of shoes do you wear for casual with jeans and stuff? I literally grew up wearing nothing but tennis shoes all the damned time. I want to look more put together than that, but I’m kind of at a loss. The best I’ve managed to do is… black tennis shoes. Or dark brown. But basically, that. I can do sandals all summer, but summer is a tiny minority of the year. My current black tennies will have a giant hole in the bottom of one sole within the next couple of weeks, and I just don’t know what to do. Every pair that I try on that is comfortable enough looks terrible, and I can’t find any that look good that don’t have a heel. UGH. Any suggestions?! (I don’t have a huge budget – $50 is pushing it and the cheaper the better).

opposablethumbs @535
It was an interesting performance, to say the least. Fantastic ending. They changed the story enough to make it seem like a love triangle between Iago, Desdemona and Othello, which cut out half of all the deaths I was expecting (a bummer, but hey). And it’s just interesting watching the difference in shapes people make with their bodies between modern and classical ballet. Some of it’s rather jarring, and (for me) takes some getting used to, but we were sitting near a groups of (I think) Swedish tourists, and they loved it audibly all the way through.
And no, not the same brother (I have three, which I tend to label elder, younger, and youngest…), the brother you met is more or less stuck in London and doesn’t visit nearly as often as he should *harrumph* but then I don’t visit him nearly as often as I should…

Good luck with the prom and arrangements, I hope it turns into a lovely evening with a large crowd of happy, well-dressed kids having fun (real fun, not the clique-y kind).

[related] My sister made my dress for prom, because the thing at the time was to spend huge amounts of money on a prom dress, and that was well beyond my means or my parents’ desires. But socially, it was more-or-less as you describe, a large group of friends with current couples but all the singles, too. And it was all kind of boring, too (I think because I didn’t go to the afterparty, which was kind of the even bigger event – hotel rooms, etc.). [/related]

Hello Lounge denizens!
I’m attempting to catch up, but I’m also getting tired, so I may stay threadrupt until tomorrow.

TRIGGER WARNING (natural disasters):
• My roommate and I made it through the storm without problems. In fact, on a trip for lunch mid-day Wednesday I saw no destruction on the roads (I did see a few cars stranded, but nothing catastrophic) around my neighborhood. That foolishly led me to believe that the rest of the city emerged from the storm unscathed. I was wrong.

More than two feet of rain buried vast swaths of Escambia and Santa Rosa counties late Tuesday and early Wednesday. Homeowners climbed into attics, motorists abandoned submerged cars in city streets and rescue workers went without sleep to field a constant stream of 911 calls.

Dispatchers in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties have been bombarded with calls about missing loved ones, collapsing roadways and rapidly rising floodwaters. Throughout a long, excruciating Wednesday, first responders and good Samaritans worked to help residents get out of danger and begin the cleanup.

Emergency crews responded to more than 1,000 calls for assistance in 24 hours.

Spokespeople for both counties have said they do not have official tallies for property damage or the total missing and injured

[…]

Rescuers had to bring in boats to ferry people out of their attics. In Santa Rosa County, the Midway area was badly flooded and had damage compounded by bursted pipes.

Focused Wednesday on getting people to safety, the two counties only have begun to assess the damage from Tuesday’s historic flooding: Drenched businesses, impassable roads and wrecked homes so widespread it’s difficult to fathom. The depth of the disaster won’t become clear until floodwaters recede.

A large swatch of Scenic Highway was washed away, sending concrete, soil and two vehicles plunging about 40 feet into a pit of collapsed earth. The sight is bewildering to residents used to cruising the beautiful route overlooking Escambia Bay.

Water cut off access to entire neighborhoods. At Forest Creek Apartments, residents were rescued by boat as 200 units were evacuated. Elderly residents in nightgowns carried as many belongings as they could out of flooded apartments. Some just stood in deep water, bewildered by the loss.

The loss of life thus far appears to be very low-thankfully (would that there were no lives lost). Sadly, many people have lost nearly everything they had. I spoke with a couple last night who had to evacuate their home when it was flooded. The wife and husband, their three young children, two dogs and 5 cats (4 were babies) loaded into a Chevy Taho to ride out the storm. They made it through, but their home is destroyed.

Another guest I spoke to is a bartender at a Ruby Tuesday’s (not too far from my job). He said his restaurant took on a several feet of water. They’re closed down for renovations/remodeling for at least 6 weeks. He showed me picture he took of someone kayaking through the parking lot of his restaurant. Yes, kayaking in a parking lot.

My morning cab driver told me that he saw large numbers of sinkholes around the city. I do hope the area is declared a disaster zone- hurricane season begins late this month.

****

The owners of my store came in for the first time since the tragic accident last week Friday. They didn’t stay long, but it was apparent how deeply shaken J was. I really had no idea what to say to her, so I offered her a hug. She squeezed me tight, and I tried to echo that. She rested her head briefly on my shoulder and I could feel her shaking as if she were trying to hold back from crying. I felt so helpless. There we stood hugging. I could tell the pain she was in and I wished I could say something or do something to alleviate the pain. I cannot imagine the guilt she must feel.

Update on my investigation of Dawkins misogyny. As mentioned above until a few days ago I had somehow missed the accusations of sexism made against Dawkins. In a podcast interview Greta Christina stated with some confidence that Dawkins has been consistently sexist for a number of years. I wanted to try and find out what he had been up to. So here are the examples I could find;

Elavatorgate seems well covered everywhere and only Dawkins knows why he bothered to defend his comments on that. You would hope on reflection he regretted what he said and realized he disappointed many people.

Another source often cited when googling Dawkins sexist moments is his comments on post modernism. I have watched the following video’s and interpret what he is saying as ridiculing the notion that women need to view science through a female prism. My girlfriend (a scientist) agreed that any notion of making observations in science based on your own gender was ridiculous.

In the second video one mistake dawkins made was to refer to the strange ideas of Garey as feminist philosophy, when really it seemed like some crack pot anti scientific method nonsense. So why did he call it feminism? Did I miss a sarcastic tone? It is worrying that he would seriously consider the notion that feminism has anything to do with calling newtons principia a “rape manual”.

The third solid piece of evidence I could find where Dawkins was implicated in not understanding the issues women face was his retweeting of a tweet from Lucy Wainwright. Explained in the link below.

So we have the indefensible elevator gate, the re-tweeting of a comment that seems to belittle some peoples genuine grievances and what look to be reasonable opinions on the philosophies of the post modernist movement. Without further evidence I am left feeling that there may be some areas of misogyny Dawkins does not understand. But given what I have read and heard from him I would hope that once explained to him – what he is failing to grasp – he would accept the logic and reasoning of the argument. Although his treatment of Rebecca Watson has massively reduced the respect I had for him. (It does leave me wondering if I am being overly lenient with him?)

As it stands I will not be throwing out my Dawkins books or ignoring what he has to say on some topics, but if others on here can provide further evidence – or demonstrate that the above is all that is needed – of his sexism I will certainly be willing to accept Dawkins is well past his use by date.

It would also be interesting to hear his reaction to that podcast. Link here if anyone needs it;

mclarenm23 – While science itself is best viewed without reference to the scientists gender(the gender of the subjects of the study will often be relevant in psychology and sociology, however), the fact is that we can’t get rid of all of our biases.

Science has traditionally been a male pursuit for a very long time, at least in the west. This is a potential source of bias- in interpretation of results, in deciding what topics are worth investigating, and in some areas of biology, psychology, and sociology, could taint the results to the point of uselessness.

Having an explicitly feminist branch of science to look at things from another angle should help the scientific community as a whole identify biases that are baked in from centuries of male dominance in the field, and find ways to get rid of them.

Science as a system is really all about preventing human biases from obstructing the search for truth, this is just an extension of that.

Being not really knowledgeable about women’s shoes, my closest to unisex answer would be boots. Lace-up military or Doc Martens style boots are unisex and IMHO appropriate for the non-sandal period. Sadly, I think boots are also more than $50 in the shop, but maybe military surplus ones could be cheaper. An example.

Not to get sidetracked, but valuing the input of both sexes in science is one thing, but suggesting fluid dynamics is hard because of some link to vaginal discharge (watch the video, i am not making this crap up) is quite another.

My girlfriend (a scientist) agreed that any notion of making observations in science based on your own gender was ridiculous.

As gworroll above said. The point of looking at history and scientific results through a female prism isn’t to denigrate the science, but to pick up any conscious or unconscious biases in the results. Science as a whole has been seen through the male lens throughout history, with a few public exceptions, even though women have always participated in scientific pursuits and have made significant discoveries of their own – yet these discoveries are either (a) not attributed to them or (b) ignored until a man rediscovers them, and in this way, the history of science is practically devoid of women. And for these reasons, science has become a masculine pursuit, one where women either have no interest or no ability, never mind the fact they have both, in large amounts. As a woman, I would love to see more representation of my own gender in science (along with all kinds of marginalized categories). This is not a small thing. If you think Dawkins’ easy dismissal of this need for an alternative view is not significant enough to point out his sexism, then I just don’t know. You may need to think about this more.
See, because on the other hand, as a scientist himself, Dawkins should welcome any and all kinds of alternative viewpoints. If they are not valid in any way, they will be discarded – if they have merit, he should welcome them as an enrichment of current knowledge. And yet he insists that women attempting to decipher history and science through their own point of view is a useless pursuit.

I’ll agree that not all things are valid – your fluid dynamics example seems one of those WTF things – but again, if there’s no merit, it’ll be discarded. But you can’t discard the idea that women throughout history and in science have been consistently ignored and pushed away. It is exactly that input from both sexes that has been missing. Yet for some reason, Dawkins does not believe that to be significant. Never mind that all our unconscious biases definitely influence our analyses and interpretations of all kinds of things, and may not always lead to the same results.
(Anthropology has been one of those fields where an alternate viewpoint has been necessary in the interpretation – previously, it was thought that it was only Viking men who raided and fought, due to the presence of weapons in graves (weapons present = man, obviously, duh), and no one bothered to analyse the skeletons. Skeleton analysis (fairly recent) has shown that a large percentage of Vikings were actually women. And not kitchen slaves brought along for fun and hanky-panky, but warriors in their own right, given the same honours in death. So. That really changes our interpretation of history, and science, if the assumption that a certain sort of object signifies a certain type of person, ever and always.)

Either way, Dawkins has scientific merit, that is for sure. I, however, am convinced that he is sexist in his opinions and in his actions, and that does not detract from his scientific achievements. It does, however, detract from him as a person, and I choose to dislike him, quite strongly, for this.

if others on here can provide further evidence – or demonstrate that the above is all that is needed – of his sexism

Seriously, how much evidence do you need?? Does he need to publicly shun all women to be sufficiently sexist? He has shown that, for some reason, he has issues accepting opinions from women, and that he has issues with addressing this in himself. What more do you need?

Please stop there. Just because a member of a marginalized group agrees doesn’t mean it’s true. We all swim in this toxic sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, intolerant sea. There are gay men who sincerely believe that two gay men are unfit to raise children. If you ask 100 men and 100 women who is best suited to take care of children you will get rather similar numbers in both groups who believe crap. Actually, I hear the most stupid things about girls and boys from other mothers.
Science doesn’t just have a sexist bias, it has a ruling bias.
It becomes very clear when you look at the history of science: Brain science set out to scientifically prove that men are superior to women. Racial science set out to show us that whites were superior to non-whites. Just think about “hysteria” as an illness. Think about homosexuality. You might say “but the scientific consensus is that homosexuality is a variation of normal”, but the fact is that it was gay activists and their allies who fought that battel and once it was more or less won the scientific community came along.
The pronlem becomes really big if you think that those things are “of the past” and that current science is “unbiased”. Because the more “unbiased” you believe yourself to be, the more likely your biases are to influence your work.
As for Dawkins: There are many examples, from E-gate, to blacklisting Rebecca Watson, to his various instances of foot in mouth disease on Twitter, like “philiosophizing” about the morality of abortion by invoking fetal pain and the pain of a pig and completely ignoring the woman in the scenario, his jabs at the Skepchicks, Re-Tweeting that shitty article how the Everyday Sexism Project is the death of flirting and his dismissive replies to women who disagree with him and so on

Hi mclarenm23, welcome in. As for Dawkins, I think gworroll, rq and Giliell have said everything I would like to (more clearly and better put!). His books (which I have on my shelf from way back) are great reading and very useful, which is in no way diminished by the fact that he is a person with certain failings and blind spots as big as a house that make him a huge disappointment on certain levels. And for someone in his position of influence – possibly the most influential person in atheist circles anywhere, and certainly one of them – to blacklist a vastly less well-established and less well-off speaker and writer in what was apparently a fit of pique, as he did, is a hell of a lot more than just disappointing.

Tony, it’s good to hear from you and I’m so glad you’re unscathed – but bloody hell it sounds frightening where you are right now. I hope you and your co-workers and the owners all get through this all right (and poor J. What she and the family of that unfortunate person must be going through :-(((( )

carlie, I live in trainers almost all year round with some flat sandals for the rare really hot days – and for the times when it’s too cold and wet for trainers I got lucky in the second-hand shops (yes, again! This was a couple of years ago) and found a pair of flat black lace-up ankle boots. A little bit like DMs (which I used to wear a lot) but quite a lot slimmer and lighter in construction.

Are flat ankle boots a possibility? I have no idea about prices, sadly. Apart from trainers for both kids and some birthday-present boots one time for DaughterSpawn, I haven’t bought footwear from an actual new-shoes shoe-shop for … um … about 20 years? It may be partly a cultural thing, I don’t know what it’s like in the various places the Horde live – here in Blighty there are a lot of second-hand shops run by Cancer Research, MacMillan Nurses, Shelter, Oxfam, Age Concern, the PDSA, hospices, Barnardo’s etc. etc. (there are church-linked ones too, but I think those are hugely outnumbered by the non-church ones). So it’s relatively easy, at least in towns and cities, to find quite a range of second-hand stuff ranging from cheap tat to designer labels and ordinary high-street brands in between. The boots I found are Russell Bromley, the kids have had Gap clothes and a Pierre Cardin shirt and all sorts of other stuff I can’t remember … oh yes, some of the best finds over the years have been a pair of Versace jeans for £10, a kid-size Barbour coat, practically un-worn, for £10, a Moschino dress for £15 … well you see what I mean. So I end up being pretty out of touch with “normal” prices, which seem outrageously high to me!
Hope you find something you like at a decent price.

Giliell – I mentioned my girlfriends response because I obviously know her well, respect her opinion and know her to be an intelligent and thoughtful person. So I sought her opinion on the dawkins post modernism video to gain advice from a trusted source. On a matter which I felt ill equipped to make an informed decision about. I don’t disagree with what you outline, its just not the angle I was trying to come from.

Do you have any links which detail Dawkins re-tweting the “article how the Everyday Sexism Project is the death of flirting”

There also seems to be some confusion around what I have interpreted as ridiculous ideas about science and gender (i.e stuff like the vaginal discharge fluid dynamics link) and the failure of science to value input from different groups of people. I am pretty sure I agree with both Giliell and rq’s general points above about science and women. I am just not sure it would be fair to assume dawkins is in disagreement with those sentiments given the content of the videos I could find.

At least one guy thought so; he made a pass at me. Watching his face when he realized who I was was priceless, doubly so as he was one of the most notorious homophobes at the school, and didn’t like me very much at the best of times.cicely

—when you look out through your eyes, are you aware of/able to see your cheekbones?

Tony
*hugs* Sympathies and best wishes to all those affected by either tragedy. Thank you as well, for helping me in the midst of your own chaos.

Spent the night running off my feet. Saturday nights are the busiest nights, and it’s just me in the kitchen (although one of the other staff helped out at the peak, otherwise I’d’ve fallen even further behind. Everyone says I handled it well though, so no fear there.
My left knee feels like someone’s driving a heated railroad spike through it, though, and my back’s incredibly sore. My muscle relaxant and I are going to bed now.

Second, perhaps if you’re inclined to argue about the Dawkins thing in the face of a large group of women telling you that yes, he’s shown WAY more than enough sexism for many of us to feel quite justified in having no respect for the man (not his atheist work, but the man), perhaps Thunderdome would be a better home for the discussion?

Because honestly, it’s feeling like you’re saying, analogously, “Well, sure he ended a few lives, and the lives he ended were of human beings, but it’s a little harsh to say that you don’t respect him because you think he might be a killer…”, and I’m not sure that’s the kind of argument that will lead to the atmosphere we have come to know and value in the Lounge being maintained. This is a highly contentious issue, and putting effort into defending someone who’s demonstrated repeated contempt for a notable segment of your fellow Loungers may not be the very best path to future harmony?

I’m no moderator, but thought I’d put that out there. If, otoh, the Lounge feels this is a good place for the discussion, I’d be glad if someone could be kind enough to let me know when it’s over, and I’ll come back and read some more, because not-contentious is the quality I personally need most from the Lounge just now, and if that’s not what the Lounge wants to be just now, then I can easily and gracefully mind my own business til it might again be the case?

I actually managed to completely wear out a pair of Docs, which I didn’t think was possible. I wore the leather so thin that it split irreparably, and the sole got thin enough that I drove a gravel chunk right through it. But it took me sixteen years to do it.

That was a pair of 3-hole steeltoes that I quite liked, but I’ve had three pairs of Mary Janes – two black leather, one current that’s burgundy velour – as well as my glorious Panther Boots, a pair of 10-holes, black patent leather with a stitched black panther on the outsides, and with each boot having three slashes showing red satin.

The MJs were about $70 apiece, the steeltoes cost me $120, and the Panther Boots were a gift, but were probably somewhere north of $100 (all prices CAD). A little beyond your immediate price, but the durability means you’ll have them FOREVER.

Warning: Docs need breaking in. You will have a period of potential blister action, unless you’re careful about your break-in period (wear around the house for increasing periods with good socks, use of oil and massage of leather), and sometimes even then. But they last and last, and you can get them in widely-varying styles and colours and sizes.

Also, the last and last thing means you can often buy reliable Docs secondhand. The soles are terrifically durable, so if you see the sole looking beat up, you’re probably looking at shoes near their best-by date; look for something else. But the prices can be more in line with what you’re looking for, and it can help a lot with the break-in to have some already broken-in. It won’t replace doing it for your own feet, but it’ll make the leather a lot more pliable for it.

Oh boy. Let’s talk about feet. I have the world’s worst. In U.S. size they are 8 triple wide. My feet are so wide they are nearly square. So here is the question: Why don’t European sizes come in varying widths? I’ve never found a pair of any kind of footwear in European sizes that come anywhere near fitting my feet. Do you folks over the pond only have normal feet?

I am just not sure it would be fair to assume dawkins is in disagreement with those sentiments given the content of the videos I could find.

Umm, I would have to say that Dawkins is in disagreement with those sentiments, because those videos aren’t the only available material where he expresses himself, and also considering the fact that he considers women’s studies, a field of education that struggles to somehow equalize the attention paid to women throughout history, a waste of time and treats it with not a little bit of disdain.
Either way, I’m going to respect CaitieCat wishes and drop the subject in the Lounge (while I don’t feel it is contentious yet, I have a feeling it could descend into contentiousness rapidly) – if you wish to continue in the Thunderdome, there are fully capable and knowledgeable people to discuss with there, too. And a lot more willing to engage than in here.

Dalillama
I just want to offer *hugs* and support, because I think you’re awesome, in a lot of ways, and I can find no decent way to say that in more detail without sounding at least a bit like a bigoted asshole. :) So, you’re awesome. In my opinion.

+++

The holiday is over, the family is back home, but at least my cheesecake will be perfect. :)

Another source often cited when googling Dawkins sexist moments is his comments on post modernism. I have watched the following video’s and interpret what he is saying as ridiculing the notion that women need to view science through a female prism. My girlfriend (a scientist) agreed that any notion of making observations in science based on your own gender was ridiculous.

An example: there’s one species of duck in which the male has a quick-inflating penis that is comparable in length to its body and executes a lot of twists and turns. Scientists were puzzled by this for years until a female researcher had the idea of looking at the oviduct structure of the female of the species.

Thanks for the suggestions! Hush Puppies and Rockports are brands I’ve used successfully in the past, and I’ve looked wistfully at Doc Martens more than a few times. ;) Feet and shoes are so weird. Even when it’s a brand I’ve liked before, whatever version I liked gets discontinued, and the new models don’t fit right, and ugh. I hear you on the sizing, morgan. I went out to four stores today and found several pairs of sale shoes that (based on the recommendations here) basically worked for style, but the fit was atrocious and it’s hard to imagine that anyone has feet that work for those shoes. I think my solution will be not to get any. No, wait, it does make sense. I’ve been desperately coveting a particular sandal-ish shoe for a few years, and every year think “maybe this year I’ll get it”. I was just recently pondering that if I get money from parents/in-laws for my birthday this year that matches what Spouse recently got for his, and I declare that no I do NOT get anything for Mother’s day, I might be able to swing it without feeling too too guilty, and it’s a substantial enough shoe that I could probably make it stretch late spring/early fall with socks for more usage value. I’d be able to do so in a month or so, and in the meantime I can get by. A few episodes of wet feet (one of which happened today!) could be just what it takes to spring me over the hump into going ahead and doing it. :)

Everybody’s heard this term “moral hazard,” right? This is the idea that, after the financial crisis in 2008, we had all these people who were headed into foreclosure. I think at one point it was four million people who were either in foreclosure or headed for foreclosure, and the argument emanating from Wall Street during this time was that to provide assistance to these people in the form of any kind of a bailout would encourage irresponsibility, because these people had taken on more debt than they could handle, and that was their fault, and they should take responsibility for their actions, and it would just be encouraging more bad behavior if we provided any more assistance to those people. And in some cases, the people who were making that argument were exactly the same people who were taking gigantic bailouts from the United States government. The example I like to cite is Charlie Munger from Berkshire Hathaway who very famously said that people in foreclosure should suck it in and cope. Meanwhile, his company was a major investor in Wells Fargo which was a recipient of TARP money, and he didn’t seem to complain too much about getting TARP money, he didn’t think that was a moral hazard. But he did think it was a moral hazard for people who were in foreclosure.

What’s so funny about this is if you talk to people on Wall Street, they just don’t see the hypocrisy of that. It’s just a very strange thing.

WMDKitty:
Thanks for that link! I absolutely love Kelly Sue Deconnick’s writing and am glad to see a push being made for greater diversity in the medium I love.
Sadly I am sure there will be pushback from sexist assclams.

Advice from the horde please. I’m considering replacing my ink-jet printer with a cheap color laser printer. Since I use it maybe 3 times a month, the black cartridges (used the most) dry out between uses, and I must clean them with ethanol/Q-tips to make them work, which has the disadvantage that I run out of black ink much quicker than expected by page counts. I’m looking at completing the change before I retire, with back-up color and black cartridges ready to use. I think 14000 pages with the high capacity cartridges would last me a while.

Tony!!!!*hugs* and relief!
–morgan ?!, my feet are wide at the toes, narrow at the heels, and ridiculously high in the arch. Plus, I do not wear heels; risky bit of business even back when I had knees (thanks to a notoriously bad sense of balance), nowadays, an invitation to spend quality time in the Emergency Room. I generally wear sneakers, because it’s hard to find (within my price range) shoes that simultaneously fit me in all three directions, while being flat-heeled. My mother-in-law was terribly frustrated in her efforts to gift me with dress sandals—they were always too shallow over the arch, and not adjustable enough to correct for it. As for boots, it’s quite pointless to look at anything smaller than a size 9…for my size 6 1/2 feet. The arch, again; which means that accommodation of my arch results in a completely ludicrous amount of unfilled space everywhere inside the boot, and the contouring never hits in the right places. The most recent boots I bought are size 11. Eleven. They were the only ones in the store that I could get my foot down into, and they are ugly.

Flip-flops are not my Favorite Thing…but at least I can wear them.

What I wish I could find (and afford!) is a pair of brown suede ankle boots like the ones I had back in the late ’70s/early ’80s. Hands-down the most comfortable shoes I have ever worn, and they fit everywhere.
–WMDKitty:

Marvel is realizing straight white guys aren’t the only ones who can save the world

Did you read the article I linked up at 541? It seems that, in the Bygone Comics of Yesteryear, there were comics aimed at (and written by) minorities and women. Then came the Comics Code Authority, and the prejudices of New York Magistrate Charles F. Murphy….
–

I just want to offer *hugs* and support, because I think you’re awesome, in a lot of ways, and I can find no decent way to say that in more detail without sounding at least a bit like a bigoted asshole.

Thank you. I’m not at all certain what you might mean by the second half, but thank you anyway. :)Lynna #579
This is one of the reasons I tend to get irrationally angry whenever anyone brings up the idea of moral hazard; while I recognize that it is a valid and meaningful economic concept, it’s one that’s so often twisted by liberturds and marketeers in exactly this fashion that it’s been robbed of all meaning and usefulness in discourse. Honestly, it’s really just another flavor of negative externality, and the solution is transparancy, rule of law, and reduction of hierarchicalism, like the solution to most forms of negative externality.
Ported over from the privilege thread because they’re pretty OT:Inaji#384

Chippy [woman] is Britslang for prostitute or slut.

American too, although somewhat archaic these days and not much used. Also commonly spelled chippie by Yanks. It may be a regionalism as well; I’m not certain.

I was all happy, listening to Ulali

I am aggravated; I formerly used last.fm as my web radio service, and they apparently had Ulali in their mix. However, a few days ago, they canceled all web radio services to focus on something else, and I had to switch to Pandora, which hasn’t. I was still able to look them up, but still, it’s annoying.

my feet are wide at the toes, narrow at the heels, and ridiculously high in the arch.

cicely, you and I have the same feet! Except mine stopped being a 6 1/2 the first time I got pregnant, and are now a solid 8, often 8w. My mother has similar feet and swears by a pair of New Balance sneakers she got after going to a NB company store and getting them professionally fitted (she says they’re the first pair of shoes she’s ever owned that didn’t hurt), but they were pretty pricey. If you ever find them to try on in a store, you might test out the brand Restricted – I got these a couple of months ago on half-price clearance from an outlet store, and although I was worried about how flat and thin the sole is, they’re the most comfortable dress shoes I’ve ever owned. They fit in the front AND the heel, and that’s pretty rare. Otherwise the only shoes that have reliably fit me are classic Tevas. I can’t wear flip-flops at all – my toes don’t separate like that for the strap thing, and I get terrible blisters/cuts after an hour or so.

So, I’ve wanted to do some skeptic blogging, knocking down kooks and the like.

Got a great opportunity with an article that popped up on my Facebook feed. A kook antivax article, that *actually cited legitimate sources*. And even directed the reader to the most relevant page!

And of course, the sources didn’t remotely support the contentions, unless I’m way dumber than I thought. So I finally got to play around with some debunking, it was fun and I didn’t have to spend hours hunting down the original sources that they were mangling- they handed them right too me.

And in a comment on that post, i’ve got some flouride nonsense to get through. Some of the health stuff might be legitimate, but I’m pretty sure he’s reaching at best claiming it’s why we have so much cognitive dissonance.

Thank you for the further examples. That is the sort of thing I was looking for.

CaitieCat

Hi, thank you for the welcome.

But I have a couple of issues with your post.
I am here as a rationalist and someone who values evidence. What would it say about my methods if I required no evidence and only the opinions of those on an internet forum (whose sex and trustworthiness are as yet unknown to me) in order to condemn someone a sexist?
Secondly, I have no idea what you are trying so say in your analogy but my only goal in bringing up dawkins sexism was to gather more evidence in order to make my mind up about him.
Which I feel I have achieved, so will make this my last post on the matter in the lounge.

What would it say about my methods if I required no evidence and only the opinions of those on an internet forum (whose sex and trustworthiness are as yet unknown to me) in order to condemn someone a sexist?

That you have a blind spot that causes you to reject the lived experiences of some people as “evidence,” but I very strongly suspect, based on extensive pattern matching, that you don’t apply this at all universally. Which isn’t very rational.

(Assuming, of course, that you’re arguing in good faith at all, which pattern matching also leads me to suspect. And if you’re going to reply that you find “pattern recognition” to be fallacious or irrational in a general sense, then you’re beyond my skill to heal and need Elvish cluebatting.)

Good morning
Went to the dentist *urgh* Now I have no more cavities, but two teeth that are sensitive despite having had root canals done on them. Why must I have the weirdest teeth ever?
But #1 was totally a champ because she did her check-up all by herself with me being in the next room waiting for the anaesthetic to kick in.

Nakkustoppeli
Well, I can hardly blame 35 surplus kilogramms on one broken foot (but on two kids). But it really was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Not only did I gain a few pounds, it also showed me that I quite value mobility, so I should do something now before I wear out my joints. At 35 my body can still compensate the additional stress, but will it be able to do so at 50?

Ok, some more for you: It’s sunny here too. And it was also suney yesterday. (The days before were cool and very windy.) Hence, I decided to stay in bed all day. Mostly because I was in bed most of yesterday and didn’t want to spoil an obviously working strategy. I assume tomorrow, when I will have to venture outside the lair, will not be sunny. Unless I take my bed with me. (Hum…… Thinks about it…)

Also, Eldest is advancing in the world – he has now decided to base himself not on Mars, as previous travel plans applied, but on Saturn. Because it has protective rings around it, therefore will be more difficult to approach.

Also, it is finally raining here. Yay! Could be a bit warmer, but oh well. Next week, they say. Ha! We’ll see.

Good day all,
I just wanted to share that I’m in a slightly better place now. I’m back on an SSRI*, and because it’s my second time around, it took a little longer to take effect than it did the first time. For a couple of months I’ve been dealing with near-crippling anxiety, a terrible cold burning in my chest and a tight throat, bad enough that I felt paralyzed. I could barely work, and did what I had to do to just get by.

A few days ago, I noticed that the anxiety was just below the surface. It’s still there — I can feel it. But it’s not consuming my insides, and I’m no longer paralyzed. I’m still not 100%, but I’m at 85% or so, which is more than adequate to let me focus on my job and the business of living. Yesterday I had the energy and strength of will to clean my place. It sparkles now, which is a heck of an improvement.

It’s strange, this threshold that defines how I live my life. If the anxiety is just below it, even by a hair, I can function. When it is just above it, even by a hair, I can’t. Emotional pain has a continuum, but it seems to be really coarse-grained, at least in my experience.

I’m still a little suspicious, paranoid even. I fear my anxiety could spike up at any given moment, and I’ll be back at square one. But it hasn’t, not for the past few days, so I carry on and harbour hope that my drug therapy will keep me functioning. There’s always the background machinery that I’m aware of though.

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that a town in upstate New York may begin its public meetings with a prayer from a “chaplain of the month.”

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority in the 5-to-4 decision, said “ceremonial prayer is but a recognition that, since this nation was founded and until the present day, many Americans deem that their own existence must be understood by precepts far beyond that authority of government to alter or define.”

In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan said the town’s practices could not be reconciled “with the First Amendment’s promise that every citizen, irrespective of her religion, owns an equal share of her government.”

Let’s back up and revisit what this case was all about. At issue are town board meetings in Greece, N.Y., a Rochester suburb, which hosts a “chaplain of the month” before board members begin their official business. Nearly all of the invited chaplains are Christian, and “more often than not,” the Christian clergy “called on Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit to guide the council’s deliberations.”

This would appear to be out of step with the First Amendment. Americans are, of course, welcome to pray or not as they wish, but for the local government to incorporate Christian prayers as part of the official community meeting was problematic. […]

It was the Republican court appointees, Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, Scalia, and Thomas, that voted against secularism in local government.

Steve Benen, writing for the Maddow Blog, also noted that “Thirty years ago, in a case called Marsh v. Chambers, the Supreme Court cleared the way for legislative prayers, which remain quite common nationwide. But in legislative prayers, members of the public are simply spectators, whereas the public actually participates in town board meetings.

I think the legislative prayers should also be tossed out the window, but I do see the difference between spectating and being an actual participant. I also see that the Republican court appointees are actually buying into the idea that this nations Founding Fathers (godlike initial caps) sanctioned prayers and therefore we the people will pray. The Supremes couch the religious language in euphemisms like “precepts far beyond that authority of government,” but what they mean is “Christian God” — a distinctly jesus-ish son and Father God concept. Sheesh.

A Tennessee state senator thinks it’s unwise for the Obama administration to brag about how many Americans have signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, likening it to the Nazis touting how many Jews were shipped off to concentration camps.

State Sen. Stacey Campfield (R-Tenn.) made the comment on his personal blog Monday morning in a post called, “Thought of the day”:

“Democrats bragging about the number of mandatory sign ups for Obamacare is like Germans bragging about the number of mandatiry [sic] sign ups for ‘train rides’ for Jews in the 40s.”

Senator Campfield is not the first, and probably won’t be the last, rightwing doofus to compare Obamacare to the Holocaust. North Carolina Senator Bob Rucho did the same thing: “Justice Robert’s pen & Obamacare has done more damage to the USA then the swords of the Nazis,Soviets & terrorists combined.”

Rucho had also sponsored a bill to stop North Carolina from setting up health insurance exchanges. That’s some powerful misinformation informing these anti-healthcare campaigns. Fox News can take some of the credit. Likewise the Drudge Report, Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones and the Koch Brothers.

Jay Richards, a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute, a prominent organization tasked with defending religion against scientific explanations for natural phenomena, decided to attack Tyson in the Federalist. He went after Tyson, Seth McFarland, the writers and even the producers of Cosmos for some small minor historical blunders, claiming these mistakes discredit the whole show. […]

Richards also took issue with the treatment of Christmas on Cosmos. Tyson claimed in Episode 7—and rightfully so—that almost all Christian holidays are stolen from pagan or other holidays from the past, and they directly focus on Christmas, one of the most sacred of Christian holidays. Richards wrote:

In the Easter Sunday episode about how modern scientists determined the true age of the earth (and about the tenuously related twentieth century controversy over leaded gas), they inserted a segment about Christmas. We learn that the holiday celebrated by a couple billion Christians is really a camouflaged take-over of Saturnalia, the High Holy Day when ancient Romans celebrated Saturn, the god of agriculture. How is this relevant? Well, Saturn is also the name of a planet, which is part of the solar system, which is part of the cosmos.

Richards’ religious views blind him from what the show was highlighting. What Tyson and writers actually set out to do was explain why creationists are wrong for trying to proclaim the age of the earth based on Biblical scriptures. To do so you must trust that the dates in the Bible are accurate and historical events, yet an event like Christmas holds no weight. The holiday itself isn’t historical in the sense of Jesus’ birth marking a particular date in time, because Romans had been celebrating that time of the year for centuries before.

I comment about the nefarious doings of state legislators so often that it is a distinct pleasure to post about some legislators in California doing the right thing. They are consulting with experts to craft bills that would deal with the huge disparities between CEO salaries and worker salaries, for example.

[…]

[Robert] Reich is doing a news conference with state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord; state Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley; and California Labor Federation Executive Secretary-Treasurer Art Pulaski in support of DeSaulnier’s SB 1372, which would create a new corporate tax table that increases taxes on businesses with big disparities between the salaries of their workers and their CEOs. The bill is being heard Thursday morning by the State Governance and Finance Committee.

“For example, if the CEO makes 100 times the median worker in the company, the company’s tax rate drops from the current 8.8 percent down to 8 percent. If the CEO makes 25 times the pay of the typical worker, the tax rate goes down to 7 percent,” Reich wrote on his blog Monday. “On the other hand, corporations with big disparities face higher taxes. If the CEO makes 200 times the typical employee, the tax rate goes to 9.5 percent; 400 times, to 13 percent.” […]

Inaji, I just remembered something I wanted to ask you more than one time. I have no clue what the words of your native language mean, when you use them (like “ištógmuzapi”, or “šičela” you used recently to adress certain troll who lacked both eloquence and elegance) but I guess from the context that you are not amused with those you adress them at.

What interests me is the use of letters “š” “č” “ó” and a few others. I am accustomed to read these letters only in my native language and a few others (mostly slavic) european languages. I am no linguist, but wikipedia says to me that pronounciation of these letters is in Lakota the same as in Czech and those other slavic languages. Wiki also confirms what little I still remember from my ground school education, that these letters are of czech origin. My question is: Do you know how did czech letters become to be used in Lakota transliteration? I would expect english transliteration to be used and when I first saw you use these letters I was really surprised, especially since it must be pain in the ass to use them on english keyboard. I tried to read the wikipedia article about Lakota language, but it is way too technical for me and I got lost pretty quickly – I was not able to find the reason for the use of these letters instead of english transliteration, so I thought I try and ask if you know it and if you are willing to respond.

Charly – I can’t speak to Inaji’s particular example, but as a linguist, I can point out that many of the symbols used in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) are themselves based on Central European orthography, particularly diacritics like the ˇ háček, for (among others) historical reasons, philology being a big subject in Central European universities before it was as much so in many other places.

Since many recent transliteration systems have been developed by linguists, one then often sees these linguists’ commonplaces used in those transliteration systems, often with similar values to those found in the symbols’ Central European homelands, because that’s what we’re trained to use ourselves, and they’re far more efficient to use than the weird English hack of adding extra letters to indicate what are actually single-sound phones, like “sh” for the alveolar fricative instead of an easier-to-sound-out š, or “th” for ð or þ (voiced and unvoiced respectively: then and thick).

The specific application to Inaji I can’t say much about, but hope that helps a bit. :)

many of the symbols used in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) are themselves based on Central European orthography, particularly diacritics like the ˇ háček

That’s not IPA (where, for instance, ʃ is used instead of š). What’s most likely going on here is Americanist phonetic notation, which is used with greater or smaller changes (sometimes none at all) to write many languages of the Americas.

þ

Interestingly, the IPA uses θ instead (that’s how this letter is pronounced in modern Greek).

This is a follow up to my comment #605. There’s some thoughtful commentary on Think Progress, including this conclusion:

The upshot of today’s opinion is that Kennedy and his fellow conservatives have finally begun a project they were expected to begin the day O’Connor retired. By the time this project finishes, it is unlikely that many limits will remain on overt government endorsements of religious faith.

[…] Lexis Nexis deleted the transcript from a 60 Minutes piece on the terror attack in Benghazi, Libya at the request of CBS News.

On October 27, 2013, CBS News correspondent Lara Logan ran a story on the popular television news program in which a former security contractor claimed he was at the U.S. diplomatic outpost when it was attacked, had himself attacked a supposed al-Qaeda operative and saw U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens’ dead body.

However, within days, various news outlets had not only discredited the contractor’s story, but also highlighted other false and misleading claims from Logan’s report. She subsequently apologized for the errors and the network asked Logan and a colleague who worked on the story to take a leave of absence. […]

CBS deleted the story and transcript from its website and searching the Lexis Nexis database will yield no results for a transcript of the report […]

Girls who are not sexually abstinent, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Officer Regina Coward reportedly said, typically wind up victims of sexual assault. Or they become members of a gang. Or they take drugs. Or they become prostitutes.

To drive this message home, Coward organized a “Choose Purity” event that was co-sponsored by her police department. The message of the event, according to the Las Vegas Sun is that “[g]irls who ‘get promiscuous’ can wind up dead.” Approximately 125 parents and children attended. […]

Justice Elena Kagan argued Monday that the Supreme Court went “far astray” from constitutional principles when narrowly ruling that a New York town may begin its public meetings with a prayer that tends to be Christian.

In her dissenting opinion against the 5-4 ruling, the Obama-appointed justice accused the court’s conservatives of “blindness” to the secularism principles at stake, particularly the rights of religious minorities.

“I have no doubt that every member of this Court believes as firmly as I that our institutions of gov­ernment belong equally to all, regardless of faith. Rather, the error reflects two kinds of blindness,” Kagan wrote. “First, the majority misapprehends the facts of this case, as distinct from those characterizing traditional legislative prayer. And second, the majority misjudges the essential meaning of the religious worship in Greece’s town hall, along with its capacity to exclude and divide.” […]

Yeah. Justice Kagan is correct. The problem here is that the conservative members of the court suffer from “blindness” when it comes to issues of religion. They cannot see secular principles. I don’t think this is how “blind justice” is supposed to look.

I just read an article about a spanish priest from Jaen who said the following during a first communion mass (where 8-9 year old children are given “special” waffers for the first time). Translated as accurately as i can:

“it used to be that maybe a man got drunk and beat his wife, but he didn’t kill her like you see nowadays, because there used to be morals”.

azhael
… Wow. Because beating is okay since it’s not as extreme as murder. *gag*

+++

[thoughtful moment]
It’s funny.
There’s the kind of people in your life who are awesome and good friends and you enjoy time with them and they turn into great friends, and it’s all really awesome because you see them regularly and build up this solid friendship through common experiences and the like.
And then there’s the kind of people in your life who you don’t see regularly at all, but with whom you want to stick because they once said something really small at the time that sticks in your memory and helps you get through all the tough times.

The friend (and his family) we went to see today was the second kind.
I met him back in like 2005 when I came to Latvia with a Latvian-Canadian musical production that somehow managed to rig several summertime performances for itself here in Latvia in the National Theater. We were short male dancers (no, not that kind of male dancer!!) so we recruited a couple of guys from the local actors’ academy, and I formed a reasonable potentially-short-term friendship with all of them because they were fun and cute and we were all young and into cross-cultural connections, especially this one who is the friend I am speaking of.
Anyway long story short, when in 2006 I came to Latvia for those six weeks that haven’t ended yet, I met up with him, and he was the only person ever, ever, EVER to not meet my desire to stay and live in Latvia with incredulity and ridicule (anything that was a variation along the lines of “why the hell would you WANT to be here?” was every single other person’s first reaction, including then-pre-Husband’s). He (the friend) expressed undisguised delight and happiness and absolute support for the idea, without being ridiculous about it. Several times over the years when things have been kind of shitty, it’s his words and expression that I remember to sort of give myself external reason and validation for doing what I’m doing. And while what he did and said wasn’t anything much at all, it’s a weird sort of comfort knowing that someone out there unconditionally supports your decision, even though they’re not an actual, immediate part of everyday life. The kind of person you want to keep around, even at the periphery, because they provide a sort of attachment and continued validation for what you’re doing, no matter how rarely you might meet.

At the same time, I feel a sort of desperation in my desire and/or need to maintain this kind of rather distant friendship, because it feels like an anchor that sometimes holds me in place when nothing else would – like that last little handhold before letting go, the one that doesn’t let you give up completely. Weird, I know, but at the same time, those few words he said years ago really help to keep hanging on sometimes. And it’s not a connection, however vague or tenuous, that I want to lose. And I don’t intend to, since his continued enthusiasm at our occasional meetings more or less tells me it’s a mutual feeling.

What’s extra cool is that he is now a more-or-less settled rather prominent actor in the National Theater, so basically a local celebrity. ;)

Glenn Beck’s take on the White Correspondents Dinner is, well, interesting. He says it was like being raped. And then he went on to talk about concentration camps run by Vice President Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi.

“My wife and I left and said, should we go and take a shower because I feel like I’ve just been raped.”

“It’s an awful, awful experience, filled with just some of the worst people ever assembled in one building.”
[…]
He proceeded to discuss a clip from the video in which Louis-Dreyfus and Biden walk in on Pelosi — whom Beck mocks as wearing “a giant clown jumpsuit” — in a tattoo parlor. “Why are they getting tattoos?” Beck asked. “Don’t they know that they’re the ones that are going to be running the camps? They don’t get the tattoos, they give the tattoos,” he said, alluding to the tattoos that prisoners were given at Nazi concentration camps. […]

You know all the racist comments we’ve been hearing lately from the likes of Cliven Bundy and Don Sterling are all President Obama’s fault — you knew that, right?

Larry Klayman insists Americans had “stopped thinking in racial terms” until Barack Obama was elected president, which is why Klayman says that Obama is to blame for recent racist statements made by Cliven Bundy and Donald Sterling.

Klayman, who is working with Bundy on his foundering legal dispute with the federal government, warned in his Friday WorldNetDaily colum that Obama is trying to extract “reparations” from “whitey.” “[W]hites, and particularly rich ones, are now at the back of the bus,” as “Obama has set back the civil rights movement to the days preceding King and the advancement in race relations that followed his death.”

“While I cannot with certainty explain the recent outbursts of what the mainstream media perceived as racism by Cliven Bundy, owner of the Bundy ranch in Nevada, and Donald Sterling, owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, this feeling and latent resentment by whites that they do not have a president who represents their interests, but instead is prejudiced against them, may be a large part of the underlying cause,” Klayman said.

“Much as blacks experienced in the years leading up to Obama’s election, and even to today, whites now feel disenfranchised by our chief executive, and they may be striking back subconsciously with this resentment.” […]

We never have to wait long for Scott Lively to come up with yet another reason to back anti-gay leaders. He has specialized in backing anti-gay agendas in Uganda and in Russia. Now he has a new reason for us to back Putin: Putin is the man that is going to stop Obama’s “New World Order” by “standing up to the LGBT agenda and embracing Biblical values on family issues.”

Lively even managed to include the crisis in Ukraine in his crazy-assed ranting:

I personally think Obama’s motives and timing in the Ukrainian coup (and subsequent push for war) are influenced at least in part by Putin’s unequivocal stand against homosexual perversion.

Mild food poisoning myself last weekend. A day of sporadic dual-channel evacuation followed by two days of muscle aches. I’m still not feeling 100%. Our GI tract is such a horrible entry vector for suffering. Or excellent entry vector, depending on your POV.

Today is the Redhead’s birthday. We celebrated it officially yesterday with “surf and turf” on her part, and Tres Leches cake (one advantage of living within a large Hispanic population). So today, being Cinco de Mayo, beef tamales, Spanish rice, and refritos from a can. With Modelo Negra and more tres leches….

I am so behind. This is what happens when I go camping every weekend. I am never going to be able to get to everything I want to mention, so I’m sorry if I miss something. And this will happen until November.

Happy birthday to the Redhead. The food sounds delicious.

Sympathies for bad tummies. My family had a stomach virus tear through us one weekend over the winter and it was, to put it mildly, not fun.

Yay for people getting into better places!

My feet are generally wide, too. Though as a male, I don’t usually have to worry about heels. (Alright, I never have to worry about heels.) I second the question about European shoe sizes and width. I wish I had a $50 shoe to recommend… Maybe I can. Try cabelas.com. I have no guarantees, but they have a wide variety of shoes with a wide variety of prices. I’ve had one of their pairs of boots for at least 6 years and they are just now wearing out. Downside, you’re buying online with no way of trying the footwear on and would have to deal with returns/exchanges.

Oh and gaining weight while not moving. Mine was not due to physical ailment, but winter. When I first started trying to lose weight a couple years ago, I would walk in a local mall before it opened. I got tired of that, and got more exercise while walking around my development (the neighborhood my house is in) and really started disliking the mall. But I couldn’t do my walking with this rotten winter. Add in the fall being a hard time for me (lost my mom a couple years ago — probably mentioned it before) and my appreciation of bourbon… well, I am just now getting myself back to where I can breathe in my pants.

Glad to hear you are alright, Tony. Even if your region was hit hard.

Ugh. Really, Supreme Court? As was pointed out, you can’t see how it was coercive, yet someone brought a suit against it, thus showing that it was coercive? Are you really that dense? Probably a rhetorical question.

Have you ever tried to move a half-ton of stone with a shovel and a couple of buckets? This is my third time doing it, and I was an early teen and a late teen for the last two. It isn’t easy. Even working 45 minutes at a time and taking 45 to an hour off. Our campsite was mostly dirt and moss and weeds. The campground uses “3/4 finished” stone to fill in roads and sites. So I got a half load of 3/4 finished to spread over my site. On the bright side, I am getting that exercise I missed all winter.

What would it say about my methods if I required no evidence and only the opinions of those on an internet forum (whose sex and trustworthiness are as yet unknown to me) in order to condemn someone a sexist?

You’re talking like sexism is some extreme accusation, when really it’s utterly mundane. We tend to treat it as the null hypothesis. Society is sexist, and thanks to that, most people are sexist to one degree or another, often without even noticing. By calling Dawkins sexist, we mean he’s not doing nearly enough to counteract his social conditioning—something he himself understands the merit of when it comes to religion. A lot of people are fed up with him in particular because a) he’s treated as a spokesman for atheism, and b) he refuses to be corrected, even though many have gone out of their way to explain his fuck ups to him.

However, just now, as I have my headphones on, my eyes suddenly snap-focus onto a very small moving point. And there is a spider, probably a single millimeter across, crawling its way along a strand of web that I can’t even see from the computer to my headphones.

Cue flipping out, flinging the headset across the room, frantically rubbing my face and having a general heebie-jeebies dance party.

My instinct is to wonder if it has good taste in music (i.e., similar to mine) and is coming to congratulate me and dance on my nose, or has bad taste in music and is coming to complain and eat my nose.

Somewhere between getting ‘tubed at least once as a neonate, a handful of early childhood surgeries where they anesthetised me with The Mask (It was HUGE. And black. And I swear it covered my whole face. And worst of all, I couldn’t move.)… yeah, I developed “issues”. My abuser didn’t help on that front. Rather, his idea of “help” was the exact opposite of “help” — “Oh, you’re claustrophobic? Let me help you with that by putting you in a full-body restraining hold and covering your face so you can’t breathe.” He then had the nerve to complain, because he was “only trying to help”.

It’s a roguelike / rhythm game where you play a female protagonist – looks from the preview video to be an archaeologist – who isn’t super-sexy, and appears to be trying to retrieve her heart from the big bad.

But if we listen to all the know-it-alls out there, this game will never sell cause people don’t buy games with female protagonists.

Kevin, seeing how they’ve stopped the preordering and have a working alpha already, I’m happy to see the nay-sayers wrong. Having said that, I hope you realize it’s a very small victory – roguelikes have always featured female protagonists and except Diablo those protagonists have never been sexualized. Furthermore, since roguelikes don’t really have a plot or story or character development she’s “female” only in the sense that her spite has long hair and breasts.

But don’t mind me, I’m still waiting for a second Beyond Good & Evil or a female version of Planescape: Torment (though credit where it’s due – the enhanced edition of Baldur’s Gate has improved female romances and added a gay option).

[…] I think the interesting change in the court’s posture today is that sectarian prayer in advance of legislative sessions is no longer characterized merely as “prayer.” In the hands of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who writes for five justices, these benedictions are now free and unfettered “prayer opportunities.” And “prayer opportunities” are, like “job creators” and “freedoms,” what make America great. […]

From now on we just do as the religious majorities say, so long as nobody is being damned or converted.
“To hold that invocations must be nonsectarian,” Kennedy wrote for the five-justice plurality, “would force the legislatures that sponsor prayers and the courts that are asked to decide these cases to act as supervisors and censors of religious speech.”[…] from now on sectarian prayer will be permissible until it isn’t […] From now on, says the court, it’s improper for government or judicial officers to second-guess the motives of the prayer policy or the prayer giver. […] From now on we just do as the religious majorities say, so long as nobody is being damned or converted.

[…] Kennedy and Justice Samuel Alito relentlessly characterize religion as an essentially peaceful, civilizing, lofty influence that seems to have more to do with social politeness than religious zeal. Kennedy’s majority opinion contains the complete text of four prayers,[…] He seems unaware that for every solemn and respectful prayer, America offers up dozens of fiery, judgmental, even violent ones. […]

Scalia and Justice Clarence Thomas file a separate concurrence to make certain that even as Kennedy has eviscerated his own “coercion” test for Establishment Clause violations, they do not believe that anyone can ever be coerced by state endorsement of religion, unless there has been brutal and repressive coercion:

“… to the extent coercion is relevant to the Estab­lishment Clause analysis, it is actual legal coercion that counts—not the ‘subtle coercive pressures’ allegedly felt by respondents in this case.”

Thomas adds that in his view the First Amendment religion clauses don’t apply to the states in the first place. And it only probably bars the establishment of a national church—leaving open the question for another day. […]

The report, prepared by the federal government’s National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee (NCADAC), won’t break any news. Instead it seeks to quantify and illustrate the huge effects climate change has had and will have on the country, using interactive graphics to illustrate everything from rising temperatures to the devastating effects on Arctic sea ice in the last five years.

The 1,300-page report comes on the heels of the United Nation’s latest assessment of climate change’s global impact.

The draft illustrates definitively the effects man-made carbon emissions have on the environment, raising familiar warnings about worsening climate change and showing just how high the sea level will rise, just how much hotter the country will get, and how it will transform the agriculture, energy, and transportation industries.

I may have to drop that calculus class after all; it’s finally starting to make sense, but I hadn’t time to get my homework in, and I’m still too shaky on the bits that don’t to properly apply them to the bits that do. I can say we’d have been a damn sight better off if we’d started with things like rates of change, gone from there to derivatives, and then into all this crap with tan lines and the like, which would make sense then and have some context. Fuckery. I feel all manner of bad about dropping it, on a lotta levels, but I don’t think I can catch up anymore.

opposablethumbs and ajb47: thank you for that. It’s an ongoing, daily challenge. I count myself lucky when I have days that are not bad ones, and just embrace it in the moment. One day at a time!

Dalillama, Schmott Guy: Sorry to hear it. I struggled through Calc I and Calc II many moons ago, then completely collapsed when I took something quite horrifying known as “Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors”. Oh my god, I thought my brain was going to rupture.

I’m glad that you’re in a better place. And that your place is better.
:)
–
Happy (Belated) Birthday to the Redhead!
–Dalillama—perhaps, when you take another run at it someday, the ground you’ve gained now will provide you a better launch-point then.
–

Hi everyone. I’m sorry that I haven’t been hanging around the lounge much because that makes me feel guilty posting this again but I’ve updated my page since last time I posted it. http://www.gofundme.com/8a8nio

In case people are wondering, as far as money is concerned, the question that friends and family always seem to have or seem to be thinking is why doesn’t my wife get a job to help you out since you are the sole income. None of them seem to understand that she has severe depression and anxiety to the point that she hasn’t been able to work in nine years. I think that something like that may be better understood here. I would get a second job but I barely hold on mentally most days and I don’t think my family would be able to handle that right now even if I could. We had to pull my daughter out of school for now due to her anxiety and are now trying to figure out homeschooling options (we’ve had to do this before). My wife also has severe sleep apnea and that coupled with her medication she is pretty much constantly drowsy and tends to need excessive amounts of sleep that she can’t seem to catch up on even with her device and mask she needs to wear. So I kind of tend to be needed around most days. The truth is I’d guess about 75% of my vacation days in the past 5 years have been used because I was needed at home because of mental health emergencies. I work from home now so at least it’s easier to work around being needed now.

As far as credit goes. It’s not an option. I can’t really blame anyone for that other than ourselves. We made poor choices and I used to foolishly relied on overtime that dried up years ago. We ended thousands of dollars behind between rent, bills and credit card payments. This was all years ago and we are still paying for it and will be for a long time to come. We didn’t even make a bunch of frivolous purchases or anything. Well, we stupidly maxed out a credit card on baby supplies, baby devices, etc.when my wife was pregnant not realizing that half the shit people tell you that you to need you really don’t need. Then my wife had severe postpartum depression and a nasty infection from her c-section I had to take a few month’s leave from work and we maxed out another credit card. But, I haven’t paid money for a television in almost ten years. Almost all our electronics are hand me downs or out-of-date and our furniture is usually comes from someone else’s trash. The rest of it was a move and renting a place we couldn’t afford without overtime and we we’re only there so my daughter could have a yard to play in.

And here I go and have to come out as transgender eh? :p Ugh, already have enough shit to deal with as it is. I’m the rock in the family which is ironic considering I have depression and social anxiety that I’m now pretending doesn’t exist because acknowledging it too much can complicate the gate-keeping when it comes to accessing services and getting funding for transgender related services.

Sorry. I know this sounds like I’m trying to guilt people but I’m not. I am just trying to explain and also just needing to let it out. My transition has also caused difficulties with my wife and my relationship. I think we’ll make it through but obviously the nature of it has changed.

Sorry, I feel like the bad friend that only shows up when they need something.

After a boozy Saturday night, Sarah Maguire awoke the next morning to find that her iPhone was gone. Her roommate’s phone was gone, too. Were they at the bar, she wondered, or in the cab?

Using the Find My iPhone app on her computer, she found that someone had taken the phones to a home in this Los Angeles exurb, 30 miles east of her West Hollywood apartment.

So Ms. Maguire, a slight, 26-year-old yoga instructor, did what a growing number of phone theft victims have done: She went to confront the thieves — and, to her surprise, got the phones back.

“When I told my mom what I did, she thought I was crazy,” Ms. Maguire said.
With smartphone theft rampant, apps like Find My iPhone offer a new option for those desperate to recover their devices, allowing victims like Ms. Maguire to act when the police will not. But the emergence of this kind of do-it-yourself justice — an unintended result of the proliferation of GPS tracking apps — has stirred worries among law enforcement officials that people are putting themselves in danger, taking disproportionate risks for the sake of an easily replaced item.

Ms. Maguire did not appear to know anything about the thief, yet still chose to confront them about her phone. I don’t think that’s wise. The potential risks, IMO, outweigh the benefits. I’m glad she got her phone back without a problem, but I think this app should be eliminated.

Wear your favorite city on your wrist with these stainless steel metro cuffs from Design Hype. Each public transit map is embossed in black onto a matte background. The cuff is inherently adjustable and can be squeezed into very small sizes or bent open for a larger size. that measures 2.5″ in diameter and 2″ in width.

Using found objects like vines, plywood, and other junk he creates a sturdy framework to which he applies the classic drip method sandcastle technique resulting in these strange temorary structures that look like contemporary land art pieces.

Spanning nearly 800 completely handwritten (and painted) pages, Traité des couleurs servant à la peinture à l’eau, was probably the most comprehensive guide to paint and color of its time. According to Medieval book historian Erik Kwakkel who translated part of the introduction, the color book was intended as an educational guide. The irony being there was only a single copy that was probably seen by very few eyes.

It’s hard not to compare the hundreds of pages of color to its contemporary equivalent, the Pantone Color Guide, which wouldn’t be published for the first time until 1963.

Judging by the wisps of smoke, buggering the mains power is a truly once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Totally worth it, though.

How can you tell? The screams? The jumping up-and-down-and-side-to-side-whilst-turning-somersaults? The sparks? Or do Latvian potatoes allow one to survive the experience and thus report from a first-hand perspective?

The interviews clearly showed the extraordinary control [Warren] Jeffs exercised over the community, remarkably in spite of the lack of his physical presence. In addressing this issue, one interviewee commented that for many community members hearing his voice (an issue to be subsequently addressed) provided sufficient cause for acting in accordance with his demands and acceding to new Revelations. These new Revelations espoused an end of the world prophecy on December 31, 2012, the removal of eight-year-old girls from their parents’ home in order to prepare them for their future role as a sister wife, the transfer of newborn babies to new caretakers who subsequently rename them in order to erase their self- identity, and only fifteen ‘worthy’ men were permitted to impregnate women in the FLDS community (the woman’s husband and others forcibly hold down his wife as one of the fifteen men rapes her).

That’s an excerpt from a report titled “Polygamy: Not ‘Big Love’ but significant harm,” by Julia Chamberlin and Amos N. Guiora. The report appears in the March edition of Women’s Rights Law Reporter.

We’ve heard about the control Warren Jeffs still exerts over the polygamist colonies, and we’ve heard rumors of the “15 worthy men” being ordered/allowed to impregnate all the women, but this is the first confirmation we have that the “15 worthy men” order was true and that the order resulted in rape.Salt Lake Tribune link.

PZ has commented before about the dubious rantings/writings of David Barton, profession pseudo historian. Barton recently added to his long list of stupid, anti-historical comments. Surprise, his comments provide new fodder for “biblical principles” being used in the founding of the USA. Oh, yeah, he’s also wrong again.

…Barton explained that women were not given the right to vote when the Constitution was written because the Founding Fathers were trying to protect the institution of the family by giving every “family” a right to vote through the male head of the household.

Responding to a question from a listener who argued that the Founding Fathers denied women the right to vote not out of sexism but rather based on the biblical principle that a house divided against itself cannot stand, Barton said that this interpretation was exactly right because not allowing women to vote was designed “to keep the family together.”

There’s one small problem with this: Barton, as is too often the case, is wrong.

There’s literally nothing in the historical record to support the notion that voting rights were deliberately limited to men – or more accurately, white men – to “keep the family together.” Women, rather, were denied the right to vote until 1920 because men in power saw them as incapable.

That said, Barton’s odd argument is alarming to the extent that he seems to be suggesting that denying women voting right may have some familial value. […]

When I was 8 years old, I saw a pigeon poop on a Quran while we were outside doing an Islamic studies class. I showed the book to my grandma, who decided the pigeons were possessed and needed to be executed. So, some men got together and murdered all those pigeons in the name of God. We didn’t know which bird actually did the pooping, so they had to kill all of them.

Tucker Carlson repeated his claim Monday afternoon that a Texas middle school teacher should not face criminal charges after performing a classroom lap dance for a 15-year-old student, reported Media Matters.

The Fox News personality said April 28 on “Outnumbered” that charging the teacher, Felicia Smith, would be “deranged, because there’s no victim here.”

His comments drew a significant response from viewers, and Carlson’s co-host Harris Faulkner, read three comments posted on the program’s Facebook page.

“Tucker is so wrong on this one,” one viewer posted. “What that teacher did is assault and she should lose her job and do jail time.”

Another woman expressed similar views, but a male viewer said he agreed with Carlson.

“Whether it’s fair or not, a double standard does exist,” the viewer posted. “I would be hard pressed to find a 15-to-17-year-old boy that doesn’t dream of being seduced by a hot teacher.

The only reason we wouldn’t ship is because we can’t find it in our store, in which case we kick it back and the system sends it to another location.

Ideally we’d get 100%, but shortage happens so some orders we get, we just don’t have in the store… and sometimes things get put in the wrong area or the sales floor is a mess and we have it, but just can’t find it quickly enough.

Thanks Tony!. I appreciate that. I just don’t want to seem all take but no give. I just have days where it’s hard to find time to do anything outside of basic function and so overwhelming to keep up with my internet haunts.

Dalillama I’m very understanding of what it’s like. I feel like I’m just one step left of there myself. I couldn’t hold down a job until my mid-twenties so I was there for a while. I think I’ve only been able to do my current job (9 years) so long because I almost never need to speak to anyone aside from a few one sentence emails a day and never need to speak to customers. I did manage a year and a half a at call center doing tech support when I was 19-20 but I think I’m still traumatized from that :P

In a response written to the Argus-Leader on Monday, Democratic candidate Dr. Kevin J. Weiland explained that Hickey was “not only hurtful but entirely wrong.”

Hickey got a chance to respond during a 40-minute video interview with Argus-Leader Managing Editor Patrick Lalley later on Monday.

“There are no warnings — public health warnings — against homosexual sex,” Lalley told Hickey. “The general consensus of science is that the actual physical act is not any more dangerous [than heterosexual sex].”

“And here’s what I’d like to ask Dr. Weiland. Do you tell your patients to wash their hands before they eat?” he continued. “Why? Because you touch a doorknob and you don’t want to get it inside your body.”

“I hesitate to get crude again, but Dr. Weiland, is it OK for, you know, eight of your friends that you’re in love with to take a dump in your bed and then you can sleep in it all year long?”

Dude, seriously? This is wrong on so many levels. He thinks gay *men* (lesbians must be nonexistent to him) take multiple lovers and have wild shit filled orgies and go on to sleep in said shit? Does he think gay men don’t take showers? Does he think that gay men like shit? Where the hell does he get his information from? Scott Lively??

California’s Rialto School District, north of San Bernardino, has announced that they’re officially striking an assignment from the 8th grade curriculum that asked students to argue “whether or not you believe this was an actual event in history, or merely a political scheme created to influence public emotion and gain wealth.”
{…}

Here’s a good rule: Don’t use marginalized human beings as fodder for your cute little thought experiments. The only reason this assignment even made it into the curriculum, I’d wager, is that the entirety of San Bernardino County has only about 3,000 Jewish residents (as of 2000). That’s 0.2% of the population. The Rialto School District alone has about 30,000 students. Nobody batted an eye when this assignment was first implemented—the district spokesperson said that they “did not receive complaints about the assignment from parents, teachers or administrators”—perhaps because it’s possible that many students have not even met a Jewish person before. That’s an environment that warrants more care, more aggressive dismantling of ignorance, more strident denunciations of anti-Semitism, not less.

The district seems to be avoiding pointing a finger at any individual teacher—instead, they say, the assignment was designed by “some teachers” to fulfill Common CORE standards (a convenient bogeyman) and “was meant to engage students in ‘critical thinking.'” Which, if I’m being generous, I GUESS means that they assumed “Is the Holocaust a hoax?” is such a ridiculous question that the students would unanimously denounce the reading materials given to them by their trusted educators and write the greatest collection of yes-the-Holocaust-happened essays the world has e’er seen.

Except, you know what? We don’t need a sheaf of rousing essays written by children arguing that the Holocaust happened, BECAUSE THE HOLOCAUST FUCKING HAPPENED. We’ve covered this. There are still people alive who lived through it. We don’t need 8th-graders to engage with this question any more than we need them to “debate” whether dust particles are an aggregate of pollen, soil, human skin cells, pet dander, textile fibers, and hair, or whether they’re actually BILLIONS OF TINY ANGELS THAT CRAWL IN YOUR NOSE WHILE YOU SLEEP AND KISS YOUR BRAIN. It’s been handled already, ding-dongs.

More importantly, students don’t just intrinsically know which sources are reputable and which are hot garbage, because that’s a thing that teachers are supposed to teach them. And holding up “Was the Holocaust a hoax? Y/N/IDK” as a worthwhile debate—even if the deniers get vigorously trounced—only legitimizes that bullshit paranoid argument. Not every viewpoint deserves to be heard. You don’t have to include virulent homophobes when you talk about gay marriage, you don’t have to let Donald Sterling weigh in about Affirmative Action, and you don’t have to teach high school kids to approach bigotry with an open mind. In fact, it is your express responsibility, as an educator, to do the opposite.

Bolding mine.
This needs to be drilled into the heads of a *substantial* number of people.

I feel a post on white privilege and maybe one on rape culture is about to hit my blog in the next week or so. Just way too much strawmanning I’m seeing on my Facebook feed.

The hilarious bit on the white privilege is the guy, when describing advantages and disadvantages different races have in society, pretty much exactly describes white privilege. So he believes it exists when you discuss specific issues, but when you call it white privilege it’s total bullshit. “Alcohol doesn’t make you drunk, but alcohol reduces your reaction time and coordination, can impair memory, reduces inhibitions and impairs judgement” is pretty much his argument on white privilege. It’s bizarre.

He’s also claiming that close to half of rape accusations are false. There are reasons he gets more leeway on this before I hit the block button than other people would, but I do want to address it and properly doing so in a Facebook thread just won’t work. I’ll have to take it to my blog and direct comments there.

Can anyone point me to any data on the safety of rubber mulch for mulching container plants and/or vegetables that doesn’t come from either a contractor that provides it or a militantly “principles first” organic group?

Alice Wilde
*hugs* And don’;t worry, as Tony said, this place is for exactly that kind of thing, even if you don’t have a chance to hang around regularly. Or perhaps, especially if, in a weird way. Either way, you’re welcome here anytime, and I can only hope that things go better for you and your family!!!

Tony
The colour mixing was… very modern-looking, and by that I mean that it looks no different from a colour-mixing catalogue today (except for the beautifully cursive script on the top of the page). Who’s wasting time at that link? *ahem*

gworroll
Good luck with the job, I couldn’t quite tell if the 94% was a good result, but it sounds like it compares favourably with the optimal level of shipped orders.
Also, if you do write the post, I would also be much obliged if you linked to it here, for the reading of by me. :)

Belated happy birthday to the Redhead
Could somebody post their tamales recipe? I’m pretty sure I can’t get the ingredients, but I’d like to try (I’m craving tamales)

+++rq
Wow, that’s one messed up list.
Some things are clearly individual taste (like #3), some are kinks some people have and others haven’t (#4), some are clearly abuse and assault (#14 and #15) and #6 should be on the list of things every person should do during sex. Apparently nobody noticed the contradiction between X items saying “I don’t like it when he just does” and then putting in an item that says “I don’t like it when he asks for consent.”

Giliell
I know that feeling!! It always happens when I put something somewhere very safe, where I know it won’t get lost, and (obviously) I will remember where I put it.
Eventually, I laugh at myself, but in the meantime, I hope you find your document ASAP!!!

Put important things where you will never look for them. That makes them easy to find later, just look where you know that can’t be.

There is also the mildly deranged penguin’s approach: Burn them (or blow them up). Provided you can remember which pile of ash (or crater) is which important thing, you’ll never be at a loss for what happened.

I broke down crying the first time I heard it and I still do now if I listen to it. I think it was when I heard this the first time that the pieces all started falling into place for me. I knew what those kids were talking about. I was those kids grown up but instead of expressing and living it I repressed and buried it. And then to my surprise before I came out to anyone my daughter told my wife and I she was a girl and not a boy. That’s when I came out to my wife too. What to do from there was obvious to me for obvious reasons and my wife was ready to burn down cities rather than not let her be who she is.

The trouble with documents is that sometimes they need to be legible by official persons with little to no sense of humour or tragedy…

When a penguin smelling of herrings waddles into yer office though the wall, climbs up on yer desk, stares at you and then eats some cheese at you, and finally says “And…?” — there isn’t really a problem at all. A written apology usually results, delivered by said official toad on her\his knees, with an offering of cheese.

Fruit (as well as many variations) are sexual slang terms which have various origins but modern usages tend to primarily refer to gay men and sometimes other LGBT people. Usually used as pejoratives, the terms have also been re-appropriated as insider terms of endearment within LGBT communities. Many modern pop culture references within the gay nightlife like “Fruit Machine” and “Fruit Packers” have been appropriated for reclaiming usage, similar to queer and dyke. Fruitcake, the most common variation, originated as meaning mentally unstable or eccentric, and this usage is still standard in the UK

[,,,]

By the 1930s both fruit and fruitcake terms are seen as not only negative but also to mean male homosexual, although probably not universally. It should be noted that LGBT people were widely diagnosed as diseased with the potential for being cured, thus were regularly “treated” with castration, lobotomies, pudic nerve surgery, and electroshock treatment. so transferring the meaning of fruitcake, nutty, to someone who is deemed insane, or crazy, may have seemed rational at the time and many apparently believed that LGBT people were mentally unsound. In the United States, psychiatric institutions (“mental hospitals”) where many of these procedures were carried out were called fruitcake factories while in 1960s Australia they were called fruit factories.

Though the wiki entry doesn’t mention it, the word is also ableist.
Also, I do not know how often fruitcake is used as a bigoted slur…it may well have fallen into disuse.